


The Other Holmes Brother

by savya398



Category: Hannibal (TV), Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dark Will, Holmes Brothers, Will is the other Holmes brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-28
Packaged: 2018-01-26 22:25:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1704776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/savya398/pseuds/savya398
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"You know what happened to the other one," Mycroft drawled.</p><p>Mycroft Holmes has a secret. A secret he's closely guarded for years. A secret that will devastate Sherlock once he finds out. While in Baltimore, Maryland Hannibal Lecter has just met Will Graham but there is a lot more to this FBI profiler than meets the eye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Other Holmes Brother

Another year had come and gone, and the day Mycroft Holmes dreaded like none other had dawned once more. Somehow the day always seemed to sneak up on him despite the fact that he religiously marked the date in his mind. His assistant always remembered the date, and made sure to cancel all his appointments beforehand. Mycroft liked to spend the day completely isolated with only a bottle of fine scotch to keep him company. That day was the only time he allowed himself to indulge in his emotions, and guilt over the incident. It was a day only he marked the passage of for neither his parents nor his younger brother knew the truth of the matter. Mycroft was going to keep it that way even if it meant he suffered the truth by himself. This burning secret had him pushing away his family in an attempt to spare them the pain of the truth. For this reason his and Sherlock’s relationship was barely cordial now, and they hardly spoke to one another. Mycroft hated their distance, and worried constantly that something might happen to his remaining brother.

The day the anniversary dawned saw Mycroft locked up in his home office with his bottle of scotch at his side. His phones were all turned off, and only his assistant had a way to contact him in the event of an extreme emergency. After drinking down a couple of glasses he decided he was ready to move on to the next stage of his grieving process. In a cabinet with a false bottom Mycroft pulled free a collection of pictures. They were pictures from his childhood, of better memories and happier times. A reluctant smile tugged across his features at the first one. It was a picture of a younger Sherlock in full pirate regalia brandishing a sword and wearing a serious scowl across his features. Taking a deep breath to gather his courage Mycroft flipped to the next photograph. In this picture there was another child standing beside Sherlock. The boy was slightly younger and he too wore a pirate outfit as he held up his hook hand made from a coat hanger. The boy’s eyes were looking off to the side at Sherlock with a small smile gracing his face.

If one looked closely between the two it was obvious that they were related. They had the same messy curls, and almost angelic faces. The younger’s eyes were a darker blue gray and his curls were slightly lighter in color. But even an idiot would have been able to deduce with little difficulty that they were brothers. They were Mycroft’s brothers. The only people in the world he would do anything to protect even if it was from themselves. Mycroft was the older brother, and always felt a staggering obligation to watch over them and keep them safe. In part this could be because of the age difference. Mycroft was seven years older than Sherlock and a shocking nine years older than the youngest Holmes. Their close age had caused the two younger Holmes brothers to form a close bond. Sherlock had a constant shadow following him around as his interests deviated from pirates to unsolved murder cases. Sherlock enjoyed having a constant companion to admire his cleverness, and never pushed the younger boy away like he did with Mycroft. The two of them had done everything together. Or at least they had.

Mycroft put down the pictures when he got to the teenage years unable to look any further. It was too painful to look. As he got older Sherlock looked increasingly unhappy in the photographs. Dealing with normal people on a daily basis wore him down. People shunned him for his intelligence and his strange interests. As Sherlock grew older he became increasingly bored and withdrawn from the world. In contrast their younger brother still looked the same. His eyes were still unable to directly meet anyone else’s, and he still wore the small smile that made him appear shy and sweet, which was exactly how he wanted people to think of him.

He managed what neither of his older brothers were capable of achieving. He made himself appear normal. When Mycroft and Sherlock shunned their father’s fishing trips, their little brother went along easily. While he wasn’t exactly popular in school he wasn’t hated or feared in the way that Sherlock and Mycroft had been. Mycroft was often looked to as a cold unfeeling leader, and therefore others didn’t feel comfortable becoming friendly with him. Sherlock scared people with his incredible deductions that often had people believing him to be a psychopath. It was something of a joke considering their younger brother was the one who enjoyed murder.

Mycroft moved past these happier memories of their childhood. He allowed himself to sink into events, which had led him to acknowledging this awful anniversary.

Despite his vast intelligence Mycroft hadn’t recognized what his brother had become until it was too late. His brother had long since established a pattern for himself, and was far too set in his ways for him to be stopped. When Mycroft had found out he almost wished he had become a drug addict like Sherlock instead of the serial killer he became. Mycroft blamed himself for not catching it sooner, and putting a stop to it. He should have known with the way his brother’s mind worked, the way he could so easily slip into the minds of other’s. The string of psychiatrists their mummy sent him to had told them he simply had an overactive imagination coupled with a strong sense of empathy. Well, that overactive imagination led him to becoming the Chameleon Killer.

Mycroft had just started having a more prominent role in the government at the time, and so he had been given access to the case file. The police were trying to keep it a secret. They were unnerved by the efficiency and violence of the killings. It seemed that someone was copying other serial killer’s styles before killing the serial killers themselves. The Chameleon would kill in a fashion almost identical to the serial killer picking similar victims and dispatching them in a similar manner making sure the kill made its way into the news. This would draw out the actual killer to defend their title against the copycat. The Chameleon already knew the identities of the other killers, and get in touch with them, challenging them. Several days after the copycat killing the serial killer would be found in a mocking display of their own style. The police and government wanted to keep these killings out of the press. A killer who killed other serial killers was nearly unheard of, and would garner a lot of unnecessary attention. The government was worried the Chameleon would be seen as a vigilante, which may have been the case had the killer not been murdering innocent victims as a lure to catch the other killers.

Mycroft had been slightly intrigued by the case but he hadn’t thought much of it. He hadn’t allowed himself to because a part of him recognized that this was something his brother would have been capable of. He could have taken on the personas of these killers enough to fool the police, and he had enough knowledge of crimes and forensics to get away with the crimes. It wasn’t until he stopped in on him unexpectedly one night that he was forced to face the truth about his brother’s true nature. Sherlock had recently started using again, and Mycroft wanted the help of their little brother to guide him out of the hole he had dug for himself. Sherlock had always listened to their younger brother better than he did to Mycroft.

Mycroft had let himself in to his flat, as he was wont to do with both brothers. He had come upon him while he had been cleaning off a distinct curved knife. This in itself wasn’t surprising. All of the Holmes brothers were well versed in various types of weapons, and both of his little brothers tended to collect them. However, Mycroft recognized that knife as belonging to Sampson Jones, a serial murderer and the latest victim of the Chameleon Killer. Mycroft had known in an instant. The two of them had locked eyes. Regret followed quickly by fierce determination flickered through his little brother’s deep blue eyes as he prepared to kill his older brother. Mycroft had drawn the blade he kept in his umbrella, as a safety precaution, automatically at the sign of imminent danger. The two of them had grappled with one another. One was intent on murder and the other was too confused to do anything but fight for his life. Despite his brother’s superior fighting skills Mycroft held the larger weapon and succeeded in stabbing his brother through the side.

In a daze Mycroft called for assistance from his most trusted staff and then held his little brother close as he bled out on the floor. Mycroft had just asked him over and over why. Why had he done this? Why? But his brother had just smiled, the same sweet smile he always had despite the cold reptilian look in his eyes, and refused to speak a word. When he passed out from blood loss he looked just as angelic as he always had. He looked like the same little boy who Mycroft had helped learn to walk, and who he had read stories to under the covers. It left him broken, and for once his great analytical brain was incapable of computing what he had just witnessed.

Mycroft remained in shock as they rushed his brother to the hospital. He was still alive but later he died at the hospital from complications due to internal bleeding. The story that Mycroft crafted to Sherlock and his parents was that the youngest Holmes had been stabbed during a mugging gone wrong. His parents were distraught over losing a child, and Sherlock fell even deeper into a downward spiral than before. But at least they didn’t have to live with the knowledge that Mycroft did. They didn’t know how their precious baby boy and beloved brother had been a vicious murderer or that Mycroft had been the one to end him. Only those high in the government knew the truth. Mycroft had even earned a promotion for it. The higher ups saw the murder of his brother as a sign of his true loyalty to the crown. It left Mycroft with a bitter taste in his mouth to use his brother’s death in such a manner. For if given the chance he would have let his brother get away despite being what he was. If he hadn’t been on autopilot he wasn’t even sure if he would have fought back. The greatest regret of his life was ending his brother’s.

Mycroft took another drink of his scotch determined to drink until he couldn’t even remember his own name. Tomorrow he’d wake up with a horrible headache but the memories of that awful day would be shoved back into a heavily locked safe in the depths of his mind office. They wouldn’t be revisited until another year had come and gone.

At the very least the Chameleon Killings stopped, Mycroft thought as his mind began to drift, and no one would ever know that Lorken Holmes had been the one behind them. He had saved his little brother from being labeled as a murderer even if he had been the one to end his life.

///

A time came when a man named James Moriarty would taunt Mycroft with his knowledge of the true fate of youngest Holmes brother. He would plant seeds of doubt about his little brother’s death within Sherlock’s mind, challenging him to question big brother about what had really happened. Before Sherlock could truly delve into the secret, he fell, and Lorken’s fate was left for another day. It wouldn’t be until two years later with Sherlock’s triumphant return, and subsequently Moriarty’s that the truth would be brought to light. For Sherlock wasn’t going to rest until Mycroft told him what had really happened to his younger brother. But what neither Holmes brother realized is that Sherlock wasn’t the only Holmes to fake his death.

///

In Wolf Trap, Virginia lived a man named Will Graham. Well, he hadn’t always been Will Graham. At one time he had been Lorken Holmes. But for the past decade or so he had been Will Graham, a professor at the FBI academy and the keeper of a large pack of stray dogs. He’d taken the place of the real Will Graham, assuming his identity after killing him. The original Will Graham had had no family or friends. He’d moved around frequently as a child so he had no close connections, and there were no old newspaper articles or yearbook photos of him. He’d been a cop with a good reputation for catching killers who had been stabbed on the job after a moment of hesitation. Lorken has also been stabbed and carried the scar to prove it. It fit perfectly.

Will Graham had retired from the police force after the stabbing, and retreated from society. It had almost been too easy for him to assume his identity. They even looked a bit alike. After growing his hair out a bit and dawning some fake glasses it was simple. The only challenging part had been swapping out their fingerprints. But Lorken was incredibly intelligent and resourceful, and he had found a way. After all he managed to slip through the grasp of his older brother, and fake his own death.

He had flourished as Will Graham. He’d moved away from the Deep South and up into Virginia. He’d gone to school to earn a degree in criminology. He started teaching and consulting for the FBI. He was in a beautiful position to observe and manipulate. He did take a step back from consulting to delve back into his darker past time of killing killers. By day he taught FBI trainees how to catch killers by night he was one. However, Lorken or Will as he now thought of himself had recently been dragged back into the field. How could he resist with a cannibalistic killer of young girls on the loose?

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah, this is just a brief prologue setting the stage for what's to come. This is kind of different from what I normally write. It's a little darker and I'm possibly thinking of having a Will/ Hannibal relationship down the road. I've never written relationships before so I'm not quite sure if I could pull it off without it being awkward. Let me know what you think!


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